The European Commission is likely to publish a study on gene editing this Thursday that is widely expected to argue for deregulating gene editing and other new GM techniques. If it does, it will almost certainly be underpinned by claims made in reports by the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC), both of which call on the EU Commission to end the regulation of gene-edited organisms and also older-style transgenic GMOs. EASAC's report explicitly endorsed the Leopoldina statement.

But a damning critique of both statements has just been published by the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) and Critical Scientists Switzerland (CSS).

In a press release about its report, ENSSER stated, "The EASAC-endorsed Leopoldina statement, demanding that the EU stops regulating ‘genome-edited’ plants, represents the narrow interests of ‘genome editors’ but it does not demonstrate the scientific objectivity or balance required, nor does it represent any consensus in the scientific community at large beyond the self-interested advocates."